


Barry Bluejeans and His No-Good, Very Bad Day

by Acting4Hope



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Mild Cursing, barry has the WORST day, mentions of nudity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-26
Updated: 2018-01-26
Packaged: 2019-03-09 14:13:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13483170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Acting4Hope/pseuds/Acting4Hope
Summary: Lup and Taako hatch a spooky-sibling plan to have Kravitz meet the family. Barry has confidence, until he does not. Everyone else involved is mildly concerned as to why a middle-aged man is running frantically around in nothing but his birthday-suit.





	Barry Bluejeans and His No-Good, Very Bad Day

**Author's Note:**

> My magnum opus has finally been created. I can now rest in peace forever. 
> 
> SO this is based on [the best stand-up act I have probably ever witnessed](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-0py62rbm0) and I highly suggest you watch it before or after reading this so you get the full feel of what I was trying to accomplish. The second I saw this video, my immediate thought was "its kravitz", but then I really thought about it and...nah, its gotta be the Jean Boy. 
> 
> Please enjoy this it was a lot of fun to write!

Adjusting to life after the apocalypse was surprisingly easy for one Barold J. Bluejeans. Having his family back was an obvious assist to the situation, though there were still some tensions left over from the decade most of them spent forgetting their past that Barry doubts will ever be resolved. But, at the very least, he can say that everyone is back. And once Lup got her new body, everything was just that much easier to adjust to. 

 

The twins bought a house right outside of Neverwinter, in the quieter suburbs, where they felt it would be the easiest to exist in both the limelight of fame and the peaceful domesticity of “retirement” (because, let’s face it, after a century of running from the Hunger and a decade of battling whatever the hell else this plane had to offer; the Seven Birds were due for an extended holiday). Barry and Lup shared a room on the top floor, right next to Taako’s; though, on most nights, the three ended up sharing the bed in either room. There was room enough in that house for every member of their crazy family; even Lucretia, thanks to Lup’s insistence. Angus ended up there when he came home for holiday breaks, and Magnus would come with his dogs every now and then to catch up. Life was simple, and it almost felt like the old days. 

 

Except for one glaring difference; Taako, considered by himself to be the “World’s Most Unattainable, Unbelievable, Unimaginable Bachelor for Life”, has a boyfriend who was starting to steadily become more serious than that. They weren’t  _ engaged _ (not yet, at the very least), but Kravitz somehow ends up being the center of a large majority of the conversations Taako starts. It was clear to everyone around the flipwizard that he cares much more about Kravitz than what he would like everyone to believe, but Barry and Lup hadn’t even really  _ met  _ the guy yet. 

 

Sure, they did technically meet him once; but being in the middle of the apocalypse isn’t exactly the prime place for a first meeting with the family. And Lup wanted to make sure that she at least knew Kravitz a little before she had to work with him for the rest of eternity. 

 

Luckily for them, eternity is not coming for another six months, so Lup and Taako quickly devised a plan for the four of them to...get acquainted. 

 

At a Dwarvish Spa. 

 

\--- 

 

Barry was not liking the sound of this plan. 

 

“W-Wait, you want to go to a  _ nude spa _ for our first meetup?” Barry asks, bewildered, in the middle of dinner. Taako and Lup, who were just in the middle of planning this day-trip to a  _ godsdamned nude spa _ look to Barry and nod; as if this were the simplest idea in the world to comprehend. 

 

“What, Barold, afraid of a little steam?” Taako teases, causing Lup to snort. Barry feels his face slowly growing hot. 

 

“No, no, it’s just...why can’t we just go to a park or something? That’s simple, right? A simple place for a first meeting, where I can walk without feeling the breeze between my legs?” The question gets both twins to laugh, which would have been embarrassing if Barry hadn’t spent a century surrounded by that laugh-track. 

 

“Woah, relax, you tall virgin; it’s totally natural,” Taako says, kicking them both back into laughter. Barry feels the heat crawl up his face, but he manages to not succumb to their laughter and stands up from his place at the table. If that’s how they wanted to be, then that’s  _ fine _ . Barry’s a grown man; he can withstand a little awkwardness. 

 

Two pairs of eyes watch as Barry rises from his place and take his plate before letting out an irritated huff. 

 

“ _ Fine _ , I’ll go, but I will be going  _ alone _ .  _ Thank you very much _ ,” His words are coated with a half-hearted annoyance as he takes his dinner toward the basement-slash-man cave-slash-laboratory. He hears Taako cackle again, before the sound of scraping against the wood  floor as Lup hurries over to him. She catches him by the elbow before he’s able to descend the stairs, and he turns back to see her copper eyes watching him with concern. 

 

“You know we’re just busting your balls, right? Like, if you’re not cool with this, I’ll call get Koko to call it off, no big deal.” The utter amount of concern and care fills Barry’s chest with a warm, pleasant adoration as he leans over to kiss Lup on the cheek. 

 

“I’ll be fine, honestly.” That makes Lup smile, and she goes to wind her arms around his waist when Barry takes a step down and out of her reach. “But I  _ will  _ be going alone.” He nudges the basement door shut with his foot and makes his way down the steps. He hears Lup call after him (something about giving him directions, since everything is written in Dwarvish), but her voice is distant and muffled by the door. Barry makes it to the bottom of the steps and turns into the “man cave” portion of the basement; content to just sit, watch some Fantasy HGTV, and forget about the whole meetup for a while. 

 

The thought that he cannot understand Dwarvish doesn’t even cross his mind as he settles into the plush couch. He’s sure he’ll be fine. 

 

\--- 

 

It is, decidedly,  _ not  _ fine. 

 

Barry feels as if he is walking through the set of a porno, as he is visually bombarded with picture after picture after picture of just straight-up dude bod from every race and age. He had managed to sort of stumble his way through the first half of the spa without a lot of trouble; Taako had booked the appointment pretty early, so they were expecting him. And now he was sitting, rather uncomfortably, in a sort of dressing room while holding a pair of  _ very  _ small shorts and a white t-shirt that the spa had provided. 

 

Even in the dressing room, he’s surrounded by nudes. 

 

Like, an  _ unprecedented  _ amount of nudes. 

 

_ Oh my Gods _ , Barry thinks as he shrugs off his Fantasy NASA shirt and tosses it on the bench with him,  _ I’m going to die here. I’m going to die, surrounded by pictures of naked guys, in a spa where I can’t understand anything.  _ The fabric of the spa-provided shirt is soft, but it might as well have been steel wool for the amount of discomfort it brought just by being held. It was a reminder that, provided he actually finds his way to the saunas, he’s about to sit across from a man whom he has only met  _ once _ while stripped down to his “bare essentials”. 

 

He wonders if Kravitz is as chiseled as his face would assume. 

 

He quickly discards that thought in favor of not making this day even more embarrassing for himself. 

 

For a while, Barry simply sits in that dressing room; regarding the nude men plastered all over the walls like motivational posters. And as Barry looks at all these men--of all body types and sizes and ages and races--he starts to feel...mesmerized by it all. The naked body  _ really is  _ quite beautiful, once you stare at it long enough. It’s natural and very  _ very  _ real; it relaxes the tension locking Barry’s shoulders and knees, and it eases the shaking in his hands. 

 

Suddenly, Barry realizes that nudity is  _ great _ . 

 

_ You know what? Maybe this isn’t so bad!  _ Barry thinks as he stands, quickly unbuttoning his trusty pair of jeans and dropping them to the floor.  _ Nudity is natural! Why should I be ashamed of what I got? I look  _ great _! _ The boxers are also quickly discarded, landing in a heap on the bench with his other clothes.  

 

Barry turns to the full-size mirror attached to the back wall and strikes a powerful stance; hands on hips and legs spread wide. He’s beaming, feeling strong enough to take the door off the wall, and he laughs as he takes a step out of the dressing room and out into the spa. 

 

_ I feel great!  _ He thinks as he walks confidently down an empty hallway, taking a right down another.  _ I feel like I can do anything!  _ He walks down a few more hallways before coming to a flight of steps. The sign beside the stairs is written in Dwarvish, so Barry simply pays it no mind as he takes the steps in long strides.  _ I feel like I can fight the Hunger again!  _ He goes down another hallway, looking at each of the doors to see where his family could possibly be. At this point, though, Barry could care less about whether he even finds his family; he’s living in such a state of euphoria it feels as if nothing can go-- 

 

“ _ You need to put some clothes on _ !” 

 

Shit. 

 

Barry whips his head around to see one of the workers--a woman, fully clothed--staring at Barry in both shock and horror while pointing a finger at him. At that moment, Barry feels his confident euphoria suddenly run off a cliff, as terrified anxiety takes its rightful place. His knees nearly buckle, but he manages to race off as the woman shouts that damning statement again. 

 

Now, Barry is in a panic, blindly taking hallways and corridors to try and find some clothes. He curses himself for leaving every article of clothing he owns in that dressing room, as he frantically searches for anything. 

 

Then, Barry spots it; a pair of shorts. Barry pounces on the clothing like he were a feral cat, quickly snatching the shorts and pulling them on to cover the most explicit parts of his body. Sure, they were extremely tight, and they hugged his ass in a way his trusty demin-friends would  _ never _ do; but it didn’t matter. With the shorts on, Barry took off again in search of a shirt. 

 

After about a minute of aimless wandering, Barry recognizes the familiar sight of the front desk. He rushes to it and slams his hands on the counter, panting as though he had just ran twelve consecutive marathons. 

 

“Shirt--” Barry wheezes at the man operating the front desk, “I need--please--shirt--” 

 

“Sir, you can’t be in this area without a shirt,” The man says, eyeing Barry in disgust. Barry nods, barely registering the sentence. 

 

“You’re right, I should never have called,” And then Barry’s off, running as quickly as possible without going into a full sprint. He races down hallways and long corridors, pointedly ignoring any staircases, as he feels the life draining from his body. It’s as if the spa was sucking the youth out of him, leaving him withered and wandering like a restless spirit. Is this what the twins had planned all along? Maybe Kravitz had suggested this idea so he could truly test the strength of Barry’s will. 

 

Gods, was he absolutely  _ failing _ at that test. 

 

He was about to just give up, curl up in a ball, and wait for death when he spotted it: 

 

A fucking  _ bureau full of shirts _ . 

 

Hell.  _ Yes. _

 

Barry charges the bureau, tearing open its doors and looking through shirt after shirt for his size. Unfortunately, they were all youth smalls (an extra kick in the gut by Fate Herself), but Barry still grabs one and begins squeezing his large head through the hole. As long as he has a shirt, it doesn’t matter  _ what  _ size it was. He struggles and struggles, finally getting his head through the head-hole after five minutes of pushing, when a watchman comes upon him. Barry doesn’t notice the man standing there for nearly another minute. Then, the man makes himself known, saying: 

 

“Those shirts are for babies,” 

 

Boy, what a whallup that brought. It has never occurred to Barry that he could be as viscerally affected by  _ anything  _ as benign as  _ that _ , but Barry feels those words pierce him like a glaive. Barry is frozen in place, turning ever-so-slowly around to face the watchman. He feels his will to live fizzle out as he utters the single-most pitiful sentence man himself has ever uttered. 

 

“I  _ know  _ it’s for babies...but I  _ need it _ .” 

 

The dam breaks. Barry falls to his knees, overcome with weariness and shame, as he grasps the shirt in a vice grip and looks up at the man. 

 

“I  _ know  _ it’s for  _ babieeees _ , but I  _ neeed iiiiiit _ ,” It is suddenly the only thing Barry can say, and he mutters it over and over--longer and longer each time--as he slowly curls himself up on the floor in shame. He’s not even facing the watchman anymore, and he silently prays the man has left out of respect for the dying. He continues to mutter the phrase as tears form in the corners of his eyes. 

 

“Um, Barry?” 

 

And then, just like that, it gets even worse. 

 

Kravitz has found him. 

 

He looks up at Kravitz, who somehow looks amazing even in a white t-shirt and shorts, and wonders if he’s here to put him out of his misery. After all this time, after the entire rollercoaster of emotions Barry has just been through, he finds no words fitting enough to explain what happened. To explain the pride he felt in himself, only to be brutally crushed by the declaration that he really  _ shouldn’t  _ be waltzing around naked like he owned the place. To the wild dash through the spa to find clothes, only to be discovered by a watchman while trying to fit a babies’ shirt on his adult body. He can’t even say  _ hello _ , he can only mutter the first thought that came to his mind. 

 

“You can  _ never  _ tell the twins about this.” 

**Author's Note:**

> You can send requests/talk to me over at my tumblr!!
> 
> Also if ur wondering how Barry and Kravitz were going to end up alone if Taako is a dude, just try to picture Taako very calmly entering the sauna with Lup and no one saying anything about it bc come on, it's Taako™.


End file.
